Fallout from Trump revoking John Brennan's clearance

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Fallout from Trump revoking John Brennan's clearance

Former CIA director John Brennan fires back at President Trump, says he refuses to be silenced; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report with Bret Baier," August 16, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

JOHN BRENNAN, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: If Mr. Trump believes that this is going to lead me just to go away and be quiet, he is very badly mistaken.

SEN. JOE MANCHIN, D-W.VA.: This is not normal times. Those decisions are being made for whatever reason, people make their own conclusion on why. I just think this is sad that our politics has come to this level.

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY, R-LA.: He's been totally political. I think I called him a butthead, and I meant it. I think he is giving the national intelligence community a bad name.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Just wanted say for the record we love Senator Kennedy and his soundbites.

This is on the clearance issue of Mr. Brennan, John Brennan, former CIA director. Standing beside him and supporting him is the former head of special ops, and he is Admiral William McRaven, who has an op-ed in The Washington Post telling President Trump, "I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency. Like most Americans I had hoped that when you became president you would ride to the occasion and become a leader this great nation needs. Your leadership, however, has shown little of these qualities. Through your actions you've embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage, and worst of all, divided us as a nation."

You might not be surprised there are other people who have different feelings, including this general this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RETIRED BRIG. GEN. ANTHONY TATA: John Brennan is a clear and present danger and a threat to this nation. He supports the overthrow of this particular president, and he needed to have his access to information revoked. The president made the right decision in revoking his security clearance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: General Tata this morning on "Fox & Friends." Let's bring in our panel: Charles Hurt, opinion editor for The Washington Times; Mike Allen, cofounder and executive editor of Axios, and Tom Bevan, Real Clear Politics co-founder and president. OK, Charlie, day two of this story. It has gotten a lot of attention. Thoughts?

CHARLES HURT, THE WASHINGTON TIMES: Yes, and I feel like there's an awful lot of hyperventilating about it. A lot of people saying that it's -- one of my favorites is that it is Nixonian and unprecedented.

(LAUGHTER)

HUNT: We should clear up, it could either be Nixonian or unprecedented, but it can't be both.

John Brennan, he's somebody who it was proved lied to Congress, he perjured himself. He is somebody who was involved in weaponizing the intelligence services in a unprecedented -- in a bad light. Who knows how unprecedented that was.

BAIER: Talk to Steve Hayes and his Twitter account if you want have all the details about that.

HURT: He did a very good job of listing all of those things, and he's correct about all of it.

Of course, John Brennan should have his security clearances stripped. Perhaps it's wrong to single him out given the large number of Obama administration officials who have done the exact same thing, and I think probably President Trump, to be safe, out to strip them all.

BAIER: One thing that raised eyebrows today, Mike, was the president's quote to The Wall Street Journal from this interview last night which he was asked about this, and he said "Of course they say it's not an investigation," this is about the Russia probe. "You know, in theory, I'm not under investigation. I'm not a target, but regardless I called it a rigged witch hunt. It's a sham, and all these people led it. So I think it's something that had to be done," in other words, the clearance tied to that.

MIKE ALLEN, AXIOS: Bret, what we're seeing there, the president loves this. Director Brennan is smart about a lot of things. The one thing he doesn't get, as we see from that clip, is Donald Trump. So he is completely wrong in that clip when he suggests that the president is trying to silence him. Eli Lake is up with a column on Bloomberg really nails this. The president isn't trying to silence him. The president is trying to make him a foil, trying to elevate him. He loves the idea of now having a face for the deep state that we all will love to cover, that all will run their op-eds, that we all will listen to.

BAIER: Tom?

TOM BEVAN, REAL CLEAR POLITICS: The idea that somehow this is stifling free speech, the first thing John Brennan did was tweet something, then he called in to MSNBC, and then wrote an op-ed for The New York Times. Come on. He is not being silenced in any way.

I do think the way that Trump rolled this out made it look like they should be talking about the broader issue of whether these national security clearances, do people really need them after they leave office? Is that something we need to have or not? The other thing, too, is when John Brennan says this is dangerous for the country, that Donald Trump is doing dangerous things come, you can flip that lens around and say actually I think a lot of people in the country would consider finding out that someone who ran one of our most -- our intelligence agencies turned out to be a rabid partisan, anti-Trump. That's pretty dangerous as well. And that's one of the things that's part of this story.

BAIER: We welcome Mr. Brennan on the show if he would like to come. We would like to have you on "Special Report."

I want to turn to this other story. This is Governor Cuomo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, D-N.Y.: We are not going to make America great again. It was never that great.

(CHEERS)

CUOMO: We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: The president not letting that sit. "We're not going to make America great again, it was never that great." Can you believe this is the governor of the highest taxed state in the U.S., Andrew Cuomo, having a total meltdown!" The governor responding. "What you say would be great again would not be great at all. We will not go back to discrimination, segregation, sexism, isolationism, racism with the KKK. Like NY's motto says, Excelsior, ever upward, (not backward)." Mike, this was not the best rhetorical effort by the governor.

ALLEN: No, of course not. This is going to go down I think along with the basket of deplorables of memorable quotes that public officials had wished they hadn't said. Up on Axios, right now we have a trailer from a film that Steve Bannon has coming September 9th as part of a new group that he is starting to get Republicans to turn out in midterms. September 9th, maybe it wasn't on your calendar. It is on Steve Bannon's calendar. The second anniversary of the basket of deplorables, quote, using it again to juice Trump voters. That's exactly what this does. You don't want to be on the side of arguing about whether or not America is great. That just isn't how Americans think, especially in upstate New York and in the middle of the country.

BAIER: And Tom, when the governor's office put out he does think America is great, you know that's not a great messaging deal.

BEVAN: We've seen, there is this strand of DNA that runs in the Democratic Party that we saw pop up from time to time. We saw it with Michelle Obama saying the first time she was proud of her country was when Obama was winning that primary. And we've seen this a lot in the last few days. We saw Cynthia Nixon say ICE is a terrorist organization.

BAIER: By the way, Cynthia Nixon is facing Cuomo in the primary.

BEVAN: We had Elizabeth Warren say the justice system is racist from front to back, got in a little bit of trouble. So I think Democrats have to be careful because, to Mike's point, I don't think it's not a widely held view, not a popular sentiment in the country. I think Democrats can really get themselves in trouble if they continue to do this. It does energize a certain slice of their base but not the rest of the country.

ALLEN: We want optimistic leaders.

HURT: As stupid as the America has never been great comment was, what was really disturbing was the tweet, saying that Trump wants to return the nation to the KKK, racism, and segregation. Come on. That has not place in public discourse today. It's not true. Come on, man.

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